state of grace
by Faerie0975
Summary: the letter is stupid, a joke, and she's not falling for it. she may be only eleven, but she's not dumb. she knows that magic doesn't exist, even if she wants it to. / "and i never saw you coming, and i'll never be the same." taylor swift / next generation at hogwarts. an almost-rewrite of mudblood.
1. one

_**one.**_

* * *

"Eloise!"

The eleven-year-old girl sighs and reaches for her bookmark. "Coming," she calls as she slides off her bed and starts for her bedroom door. She doesn't like being called by her full name anymore, though her mother seems determined not to endorse the new nickname she's given to herself - _El_ - which isn't even that bad, in her opinion. Her grandparents are French and think that she should add an extra _L_ and an _E_ on the end, and always stiffly refuse to call her by the short version of her name unless she lies and tells them that she spells it the _proper way._

Her parents are sitting on the edges of their seats in the kitchen and casting concerned glances at a folded piece of paper, placed exactly in the center of the table. "Eloise," says her mother, gesturing to the seat across from her, and El sits down, twisting a piece of dirty-blonde hair around one finger. "You've gotten a... letter." She looks dubious as she carefully unfolds the paper and scans the handwritten message there with tired eyes. She has this air about her that tells Eloise that she's read the letter several times already, but she hurries on after a moment, frowning slightly. "It's from a - a school."

Straightening up and squaring her shoulders, El automatically says, "I didn't do it," without the slightest clue what she might have done. It's the summer holidays, after all. The last thing she can remember doing is getting onto the roof of her school on the second-to-last day, but she'd made it back to ground level before any of her teachers had seen her, and it's two weeks into summer vacation; it's highly unlikely that they've found out now.

Her father shoots her a tiny smile and shakes his head. "No, honey, it's nothing bad." He carefully tugs the letter out of her mother's grasp and pushes it across the table to her, both of them eying her as if they don't quite know how she'll react. Eloise reaches for the letter, her fingers shaking slightly in either anticipation or anxiety, she isn't quite sure which.

"'Miss Eloise R. Underwood,'" she reads out loud. "'We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'" She pauses here, glancing up at her parents with a frown already creasing her forehead. "What is this?" But neither of them answer her, only gesture for her to continue reading. "'Please find an enclosed list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July. Sincerely, Filius Flitwick, Deputy Headmaster.'" She folds the letter slowly along each pre-made crease and then tosses it back onto the kitchen table and crosses her arms over her chest. "If this your idea of getting back at me for not studying for that test last month -"

"It's not." Her father glances at his wife before continuing. "I, uh, it's real. Your grandmother - my mum - it's from her side. But her father was the last one with the..." He trails off and shrugs. "But it must be back," he continues, as if he hasn't skipped a part. "El, honey, you're a witch."

She stands up without realizing that she's moved. "No, I'm not," she shoots back, narrowing her blue eyes at her parents, who are both looking at her apprehensively, like they think she's going to pull a rabbit out of a hat. "You guys are insane. I'm not. This is a joke."

But her father only shrugs. "Maybe not. We'll see when your grandmother comes tomorrow to take you to Diagon Alley."

"What's Diagon Alley? she asks before she can stop herself. "Never mind. I don't want to know. I'm going upstairs." Turning on her heel, she goes back to her bedroom, leaving the letter lying on the table.

She finally returns downstairs a full thirteen hours later, very early in the morning. She's always been an early riser, climbing out of bed sometimes hours before her parents do, and when she sees the piece of paper still folded neatly on the table, she just shakes her head and crosses over to the toaster.

The letter is stupid, a joke, and she's not falling for it. She may be only eleven, but she's not dumb. She knows that magic doesn't exist, even if she wants it to.

But the letter is extremely tempting, sitting there innocently as she pulls out a chair and sits down to eat her toast. Gingerly, she picks it up by the very corner of the pages and scans the message there once more. Then she turns to the next page and reads it, too, her lips silently forming each word as if she's hearing it for the first time. _First year students will require: Three sets of plain work robes (black), one plain pointed hat (black) for day wear, one pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar), one winter cloak (black with silver fastenings)._ _Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags._ She takes another bite of her toast, filling her mouth with food to prevent herself from laughing. _All students should have a copy of each of the following: The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 (by Miranda Goshawk), A History of Magic (by Bathilda Bagshot), Magical Theory (by Adalbert Waffling), A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration (by Emeric Switch), One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi (by Phyllida Spore), Magical Drafts and Potions (by Arsenius Jigger), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (by Newt Scamander), The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection (by Quentin Trimble)._

Upstairs, she hears footsteps, a toilet flushing. Eloise hurriedly scans the last few lines of the supply list, hardly registering most of the words. _Other Equipment: 1 wand, 1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2), 1 set of glass/crystal phials, 1 telescope, 1 set of brass scales. Students may also bring an owl, cat or toad._ Then, in all capital letters, the letter reads,_ Parents are reminded that first-years are not allowed their own broomsticks._

Broomsticks. As if this couldn't get any more ridiculous.

The footsteps are nearing the top of the stairs now; she's become an expert over the past few years at knowing where her parents are based on their footsteps, who's coming down the stairs by the weight of each step. It's her father this time, probably still half-asleep, and El hurriedly replaces the letter where she found it and resumes eating her toast.

"Morning, sunshine," he says as he makes for the coffee maker, which is always where he finds himself first thing in the morning. He glances at the clock, yawning, and adds, "Grandma's coming to pick you up at ten. I think she's excited about this enough for the both of you, would you believe that?" When El doesn't answer, he only shrugs and smiles to himself. "I think she always wanted to be a witch, herself, but her dad didn't have much magic in his blood, you know. It's surprising that it's popping up again."

"Stop."

He turns to face her, leaning back against the counter and examining his daughter interestedly. "Stop what?"

Eloise stands up to put her plate in the sink. "Stop pretending this is real. It's not."

But he just shrugs, the same way he did the previous day, and says, "Grandma's coming in three hours, so be ready." Then, humming quietly to himself, he turns back to the coffee maker and doesn't say another word.

Three hours later, Eloise is sliding into the passenger seat of her grandmother's car and being handed a freshly-baked chocolate-chip muffin. Her grandma is always baking, always giving Eloise things to eat, and she bites into the muffin gratefully even though she's already eaten breakfast. It's still warm from the oven, the chocolate chips partially melted.

They drive in silence for fourteen and a half minutes before Eloise, suddenly feeling as if she's suffocating, says abruptly, "You can stop pretending we're going to that alley place now."

The car swerves slightly before her grandmother straightens the steering wheel and glances furtively in her granddaughter's direction. El plays with the muffin wrapper, staring down at her lap while she waits for the older woman to laugh. _Oh, El, we can't trick you,_ she'll say, and turn the car around and go back home. Instead, she says vaguely, "You've been given an incredible opportunity, sweetheart."

Eloise doesn't answer; she just puts the window down half an inch so that she can get some fresh air.

"We're looking for a place called the Leaky Cauldron," says her grandmother, staring blankly at the row of stores on Charing Cross Road. Eloise nudges her and points to the sign, which is entirely too obvious for even a grandmother to realistically miss. When her grandmother doesn't move, she links elbows with the woman and half-leads, half-drags her through the door. It doesn't look all that _magical,_ but her grandma seems to know where she's going now and tugs her out into a tiny courtyard, empty except for a couple of garbage bins and a neatly-stacked pile of firewood. Eloise looks around skeptically as her grandmother starts examining the brick wall of the courtyard and counting under her breath. The woman reaches out with her right hand and taps one of the bricks once, twice, three times.

Nothing happens.

Eloise is about to turn away and head back into the Leaky Cauldron (what kind of a name is that, anyway?) when there's a sudden grinding noise. The bricks begin to move all at once, shifting and scraping across each other as they slide out of the way. It takes maybe ten seconds, but the wall is suddenly a large archway to a long, wide street bustling with people. Shops with brightly-coloured awnings line both sides.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley!" El's grandmother begins to pick through the crowd, glancing over her shoulder twice to ensure that the girl is following her. "My father used to bring me here when I was a little girl," she tells Eloise as they walk, ignoring all of the stores around them. She's moving surprisingly fast for a seventy-two-year-old woman, and El doesn't have much time to look around, though her heart seems to be beating unnaturally fast and she's starting to believe the strange letter that her grandmother is now holding tightly in one hand. "But I turned eleven and didn't get my letter, and we stopped coming."

She smiles sadly, glancing sideways at her granddaughter, while they climb the steps to a white marble building. It's a bank, Eloise realizes as they join the tail end of a line up to the counters. Everything is white marble inside, and there are several small, wrinkled creatures standing on high stools behind their desks.

"Your great-grandfather left all of his wizard money here," her grandma explains as they shuffle a little closer to the counter. "He said he was saving it for me, but I didn't need it. And he refused to exchange it for Muggle money, _just in case."_

"Muggle money?"

Her grandmother smiles down at her, eyes sparkling. "Non-magical money. I'm a Muggle. Your parents are Muggles. It's fun to say, isn't it?"

After a slightly-terrifying cart ride to a vault where the floor is lined with shining silver and gold coins, Eloise and her grandmother emerge back into the sunlight clutching a heavy bag of money. She almost doesn't want to spend any of it, though she can't decide if that's because she likes the way it looks or because she's afraid that the shopkeepers will laugh and tell her it's not real.

Her grandma starts purposefully towards the nearest store; over the door, a sign with peeling gold letters reads, _Ollivander's: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC._ A single window displays a dusty purple cushion with a single stick of wood, maybe ten inches long and decidedly unexciting, lying diagonally across it. A bell tinkles merrily over the door when her grandmother pushes it open, and they approach a nondescript sort of wooden desk in the very center of the room, Eloise looking around curiously. Bookshelves line every wall from the floor to the ceiling, though there's not a book in sight; instead, the shelves are stacked with narrow boxes, too long and thin to hold shoes. She glances back at the window and its miniscule display. It's the perfect size for any one of these boxes, and she imagines walking out of the store holding one of them, the image beginning to seem a little more exciting with every moment that she thinks about it.

A door in the back corner of the store opens and a woman with dark hair and emerald-green eyes smiles brightly at the two of them over a pile of still more boxes in her arms. "I'll be with you in just a moment," she says cheerfully, trying to hold up a finger and nearly dropping a few boxes. Carefully setting them down on the corner of the desk, she holds out a hand to Eloise, who shakes her hand and tries to pretend that people have wanted to greet her this way before. "My name is Cassandra Ollivander," the woman introduces herself. "I'm assuming that you're in need of a wand?"

El opens her mouth to answer, but finds herself at a loss for words and just closes it and nods instead.

Cassandra Ollivander pulls open a drawer and withdraws a tape measure, with which she measures various body parts, mumbling the numbers under her breath, not writing a single one down. Then, holding up a finger, this time without dropping anything, she easily climbs up a ladder as if she's been doing it for her entire life and returns with six of the narrow boxes. "Twelve and three-quarters of an inch," she informs Eloise as she flips open the first of them and pulls out a strip of wood. "Cherry wood and phoenix feather. Wand arm?"

Her grandma taps her left elbow and Eloise holds out her hand for the wand, curling her fingers around the cool wood. Nothing happens.

Opening the second box, the dark-haired woman hands her another wand. "Ten and seventh-eighths inches, mahogany and unicorn hair." One of the boxes topples off the desk and Cassandra Ollivander snatches this wand, too, away from Eloise, who doesn't move. "Nine and a half inches, abirch and dragon heartstring." Again, nothing happens. "Eleven and a half inches," says the wandmaker, holding out a fourth wand, "sycamore and unicorn hair."

This time, when Eloise curls her fingers around the wand, a few green sparks shoot from the opposite end, shining brightly for a moment before fading, and a light wind seems to stir around her.

She glances around, uncertain whether or not this is a good thing, but Cassandra Ollivander is nodding enthusiastically. "This is the one," she announces, a smile stretching her cheeks. "This is your wand!"

Eloise stumbles through her front door four hours later, arms full of bags - new schoolbooks, robes that she doesn't quite like, quills, ink, parchment, Potions ingredients, and a variety of apparently-magical sweets that she hasn't tried yet. Her father makes several trips from the house to her grandmother's car for Eloise's new telescope, scales, cauldron, and a large trunk that's apparently necessary, as no one in the wizarding world seems to use suitcases.

There's an entire wizarding _world, _she's learned_._ Magic, all over the world, the kind that Eloise learned didn't exist before she even hit double digits. She believes in it now, and her grandmother, trailing up the stairs and into her bedroom after her, carrying her new brass scales, seems pleased. Eloise's mother, who watched most of the parade upstairs with wide eyes before following, sets a large cage holding a white owl with dark grey flecks across her wings on top of El's dresser.

She spends the rest of the summer reading her new textbooks, which have about five times as many pages as her old ones and seem a lot more interesting, and slowly packing the trunk that her father has set at the foot of her bed. She tells her friends that she's going to boarding school in the fall and puts more effort than she thinks she's ever put into anything into making absolutely certain that none of them see her bedroom for the next month and a half. According to her grandma, the wizarding world is an important secret, and she can't risk any of her friends seeing her books or her wand or her owl, which she's named Storm.

The morning of September 1, Eloise wakes up earlier than usual, before the sun even peeks above the trees outlining her backyard.

She's too excited to eat; all summer, her anticipation has been building up on itself, and if she really thinks about it, it's hard to believe that there was ever a time when she didn't believe that any of this was real. She takes everything out of her trunk and fits it back in, just to make sure that she's got everything - her new school supplies, her regular clothes, her _Muggle_ books, and anything else that she could think of that she might _possibly_ need (but probably won't).

King's Cross Station is bustling with activity, with so many people around that El doesn't even get that many strange looks for Storm's cage. Her grandmother leads them towards platforms nine and ten. There's no sign for Platform 9 3/4, which is where she says that they're going, but the older woman reassures Eloise and her parents that she knows exactly where she's going. "I may be old, but I remember _some_ things," she insists, but El thinks she might just be following the family of five ten feet ahead of them - a man with inky black hair and glasses, a redheaded woman, and three children, two boys and a girl. Each boy pushes a luggage trolley with a trunk like Eloise's, and an owl is somehow managing to sleep in a cage on top of one.

El keeps an eye on the family ahead of them as they stop in front of the wall between platform nine and ten. It's a boring wall, just bricks, but the wall in the courtyard behind the Leaky Cauldron was boring and made of bricks, too - and when the older of the two boys steps forward and runs _straight through the wall,_ followed by the rest of his family, Eloise pushes her luggage trolley after them without even hesitating.

A train painted a deep scarlet fills the platform on the other side of the wall with steam. On the side of the train, Eloise can make out the words, _The Hogwarts Express,_ and looks curiously around the secret Platform 9 3/4 with great interest. Her parents and grandmother appear behind her, and El can overhear the family that she followed through the brick wall greeting another group of people close at hand.

"So that's little Scorpius," says a redheaded man who belongs to the new family, eying someone that Eloise can't see. He looks fondly down at a girl with ginger hair next to him. "Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank _God_ you inherited your mother's brain."

The woman next to him rolls her eyes. "Ron, for heaven's sake, don't try to turn them against each other before they've even started school."

"You're right. Sorry," he apologizes hurriedly, but he looks slyly down at his daughter and adds, "But don't get _too_ friendly with him, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pure-blood."

Eloise turns away from them to say goodbye to her own family, hugging the three of them tightly all at once, her arms not quite long enough to reach her grandmother, but she's _there_ and that's what counts. "I'll write to you," she promises, glancing fleetingly in the direction of Storm's cage, still balanced on top of her trunk. Her grandmother has explained to her how wizard post works, owls carrying letters for wizards and witches across the world, and she pictures Storm dropping envelopes onto her parents' doorstep. For a moment, she wonders if she'll be able to write to her friends, but she can't send them an _owl;_ maybe there will be a way to send letters in the regular post system. "I love you."

"Love you, El," says her mother, using her preferred nickname for what she thinks might be the first time in her life.

El hugs her a little tighter and kisses her on the cheek; then, maneuvering her trunk and Storm's cage onto the train one at a time, she blows a kiss in her family's direction. She finds herself in a packed corridor next to the redheaded girl - Rosie? - and starts to mumble an apology and pick her way through the crowd, but gives up quickly enough. When the train begins to move, she might be able to have a little breathing room. For now, she turns to look at her parents and her grandmother one more time and finds that everyone - both in the train and on the secret platform - has hushed slightly, staring at the man with the dark hair and glasses who Eloise followed through the brick wall.

"Why are they all _staring?"_ asks one of his children impatiently from the other side of the redheaded girl. He asks it like he already knows the answer, but wants to hear something else instead.

From the platform, the other father grins easily. "Don't let it worry you," he says. "It's me. I'm _extremely_ famous."

The four parents on the platform and the children around Eloise laugh. El doesn't understand the joke, but the train is beginning to move now and she busies herself with waving to her own family once more as they disappear from view.

* * *

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE /** So I've been considering rewriting 'Mudblood' for a while, in a way. I tried to reread it last month and it was almost painful because I feel like my writing has improved so much since then. And then I got a new review on it, even though the last time I updated it was in, I think, 2010, and it was from strawberrypotter123, who was one of my most loyal reviewers through that whole story, saying how nice it would have been if I'd continued it. And that was pretty much the kick I needed to finally do it. Elle is no more, unfortunately, and this story will be a little different, but the general gist of it is going to be extremely similar. I'm rewriting each chapter, kind of, as I do this, rewriting things to make the full story better, have it make a little more sense, because I feel like a lot of 'Mudblood' was extremely unrealistic, honestly. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this, and maybe some of the old 'Mudblood' readers might come out of the shadows and read this one, too?  
_


	2. two

_**two.**_

* * *

As Platform 9 3/4 disappears, the train turning to follow its track and leaving London behind, Eloise turns away from the doors - and so, it seems, does everyone else on the Hogwarts Express. El freezes in place, centering all of her weight and standing still while the rest of her new classmates scramble for compartments.

Once the corridor is deserted, she struggles down the length of the scarlet train, dragging her trunk and Storm's cage awkwardly behind her, casting hopeful glances into each compartment she passes. All of them appear to be full (can there really be _that_ many witches and wizards on the journey to Hogwarts?) and El's face falls a little more with every step she takes. She's nearing the end of the train now; what if she's stuck in the hallway for the _whole train ride,_ tugging her things from one car to another, reduced to viewing her new home from the windy platform between carriages?

The thought that she might actually be _lonely_ here hasn't occurred to her until now. Eloise hasn't been faced with the task of making new friends since kindergarten. What if she can't do it?

For a moment, the girl stands, paralyzed by fear, in the corridor, looking around desperately. She pictures classrooms where she sits alone, a dormitory - Grandma said there were dormitories, didn't she? - where she doesn't talk to anyone, a full year of being on her own. She imagines Nicole and Cheyenne, safe at home in Eloise's old school, making new friends to replace her. A single tear forms in the corner of her eye and slides down her cheek without her permission.

"Blondie!"

She spins around (even though her hair is more dirty-blonde than anything else), wiping the stupid tear away with the back of her hand. A boy with messy black hair - _the one from the platform_ - is poking his head out of a compartment she's already passed. "Yeah?"

He points through the door he's just come out of. "We've got an extra seat in here, if you want it." Eloise doesn't say anything, but the relief that suddenly washes over must show on her face, because he strides down the corridor towards her easily. "Here, I'll help you with your trunk."

And that's how she finds herself sitting in the corner of a compartment with Storm's cage at her feet, her trunk having been swung easily into the rack above her seat. The dark-haired boy is holding out his hand formally for her to shake. "James Potter," he says cheerfully, and El gingerly takes his hand and he gives it two enthusiastic pumps before letting go.

"Eloise Underwood," she answers. Her name _annoys_ her; it's such a mouthful. She quickly amends, "El," and then leans back in her seat as a number of other names are thrown at her - _Rose Weasley_ from the redheaded girl sitting across from her, _Albus Potter_ from the younger brother of the black-haired boy, and _Annie Miller_ from the blue-eyed, brown-haired girl in the opposite corner.

James sits down briefly next to El and is halfway through suggesting some kind of card game when the door of the compartment slides open and three other boys appear in the doorway. "Bloody hell, James, what are you doing in here?" says one, grinning, and just like that, James is disappearing.

"But," protests Albus loudly at his brother's back, "_James -_ you said you'd tell us where we're supposed to go, and -"

James only waves a hand dismissively over his shoulder. "You'll figure it out, Al. Follow the crowds. Watch out for Thestrals." And with that, he turns around just to _wink_ at all of them as Al's face whitens; then he slides the door shut again and is gone.

Rolling her eyes, Rose leans back in her seat and kicks Al's knee to get his attention. "Don't listen to him. Thestrals are invisible, remember? He's just trying to scare you, it's what he does." Al looks at her as if she's not helping much, but doesn't answer, and the girl turns to Eloise. "So - you're going to be a first-year, right? Like us?" El just nods, wondering if it's _that_ obvious. "What House do you want? I'm hoping for Gryffindor," she adds dreamily. "_Where dwell the brave at heart._ That's where my parents were."

Eloise looks at her blankly. "House?"

"The four houses!" Annie interjects eagerly. "Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin." She launches into an explanation of the house system at the school; all that El really retains by the end is that there's four of them, it involves points, and there's a House Cup at the end. She's worried that if she doesn't know anything about these four houses, it will be entirely too obvious that she's not really a part of this world. Will everyone be able to _tell_ that she's the first witch in her family since her great-grandparents? What if she's a _freak? _But Rose, Albus and Annie don't seem to think that she's altogether too weird for them to talk to, and they spend their time explaining various parts of the wizarding world to her as the sky outside grows darker.

There's a knock on the compartment door around the time when Eloise's stomach is beginning to growl in protest of the lack of food, and an older boy pokes his head inside. "Annie, we're almost there, you should probably get your robes on," he advises, and the four of them stand up on their seats to reach their trunks.

"Thanks, Jake," Annie calls after him, and he just slides the door shut again, grinning and muttering something that sounds a lot like, _What are big brothers for?_

The four of them slip their black robes on over their regular clothes; Eloise can feel the excitement building in the pit of her stomach as the train slows to a full stop. She tries to peer out the window at her surroundings, but she can't see anything past the lights around the platform they've stopped at. Annie's brother is patrolling the corridor, and she can hear him telling everyone to leave their things in their compartments and head for the doors. She joins the queue of students shuffling down the length of the train, Rose in front of her, Albus behind her, Annie somewhere to the side.

"Firs' years this way!" a gruff voice calls from her right as she half-climbs, half-falls off the Hogwarts Express. "Firs' years over here!"

"Come on, it's Hagrid!" exclaims Al, beginning to push his way through the crowd and forming a crooked path for the rest of them. He's scrawny, but he doesn't seem to be against using his elbows to force people into moving, and they reach the group of first-years forming at the corner of the platform rather quickly. "Hi, Hagrid!" Al calls up at a large man, twice the height of Eloise's father.

The man chuckles and waves with one gigantic hand. "All righ' - we all here? C'mon, then." He begins to lead them down a shallow sort of slope, in the complete opposite direction from the way that everyone else seems to be going. El stumbles twice on the slightly-uneven ground, but makes it to the bottom unscathed. The smooth, glassy surface of a lake rolls out before her, and on the opposite shore, the silhouette of a _castle_ is rising into the darkening sky. "Four ter a boat," announces Hagrid, but Eloise is too busy staring at the castle to move. Grandma never said that Hogwarts was a _castle;_ it's breathtaking. Butterflies are fluttering in her stomach, hundreds of them, as she looks wide-eyed at her new home. "Four ter a boat," Hagrid calls again, "no more'n four!"

"El! Eloise!" She's brought back to earth by the shouts from the nearest boat; she's the second-last person to leave the shore and nearly falls into the rowboat next to Albus just before the boats begin to float away from the edge of the lake.

The journey across the water is slow-going but smooth; she barely feels as if she's moving, and she spends the majority of the ride with one hand dangling over the side, trailing the tips of her fingers in the cool water. The castle looms larger above them, stone towers reaching up endlessly into the night sky, and as the boats finally become still underneath a large tree that stretches her branches protectively over them, Eloise follows Rose, Al and Annie onto the grass. Hagrid beckons to all of the first-years - Albus eagerly pushes up to the front of the crowd, utilising his elbows again - and leads them up a wide set of stone steps. The tall, wooden double doors push _themselves_ open and El stands on her tiptoes to try to see over everyone else's heads; a tiny man with white hair and miniature glasses stands in the doorway.

"Here they are, Professor Flitwick," Hagrid announces with a wave of one of his massive hands.

The little man - Professor Flitwick - smiles appreciatively. "Thank you, Hagrid," he says squeakily. "Come this way, first-years!" With tiny steps that force the crowd of students following him to walk very slowly, he leads them to a large room; it looks like a disused classroom, a few desks stacked on top of each other, the blackboard wiped clean. "Welcome to Hogwarts! In a few moments, we will enter the Great Hall, where you will all be sorted into your houses. Now, your house is your family while you are at Hogwarts. You remain in the same house over all seven years at school. Good deeds earn your house points towards the House Cup, which is awarded in June; breaking the rules will result in penalized points." He nods, apparently satisfied with himself. "Good, good - I will be back in a moment."

And then he's gone, the wooden door falling shut with a loud _click_ behind him. Almost immediately, the room breaks into a nervous sort of chatter.

"I wonder what House I'll be in?"

"_I_ want to be in Gryffindor."

"I don't care what House I'm in, as long as it's a House!"

"How do they choose what house you're in?"

"I heard you have to fight something."

"A troll, that's what _my_ brother told me."

"Nonsense, it's a hat."

"You fight a hat?"

"No, you _wear_ a hat."

Eloise wraps her arms around herself and remains silent, trying to follow six different conversations at once. The maybe-friends she made on the train are throwing in their input, too, sharing their extensive knowledge, and she just feels as if she doesn't know what's going on, doesn't know anything at all. She keeps quiet as Professor Flitwick returns, announcing that the rest of the school is _ready_ for them. She follows in silence as they all cross the hall and squeeze through a set of wide doors into a room with a high ceiling (is it a ceiling if it looks like the starlit sky, though?) and four tables with bare tops, crowded on all sides by older students, half of them talking amongst themselves, half of them watching as they move down the length of the room towards a fifth table. It's raised above the others by ten low steps, and filled with teachers. Behind the table, a large banner depicts a shield, a large _H_ in the center, each corner occupied by different colours, different animals.

"How does the ceiling _do_ that?" she asks, speaking for the first time in several minutes, aiming the question at no one in particular.

"Magic," hisses Rose from somewhere to her left. "Mum says it's enchanted."

As they reach the top of the steps, El turns to face the rest of the room; each of the four tables, she sees now, has its own banner at the opposite end. A silver snake curls across a green banner; a badger over a yellow background; a lion roars in front of a red backdrop; an eagle spreads golden wings across a blue sky. Hundreds of candles hover several feet above the wooden tabletops, lighting the hall in shades of bright gold. Everyone in the hall hushes, turning their gazes to something in front of the group of first-years; El leans to the side to try to spot what everyone is looking at, and is startled to find just how unexciting it is - a low four-legged stool and, sitting neatly on top of it, one raggedy black witch's hat, its pointed tip leaning to one side instead of pointing straight up at the enchanted ceiling.

Professor Flitwick clears his throat importantly, pulling a lengthy scroll of parchment from his robes. The sound echoes across the room as he unrolls it; everyone is silent now, faces turned expectantly at the tiny white-haired man. "Adams, Elisabeth," he calls, and a girl with dark auburn curls steps forward, trembling with what looks like half-excitement and half-fear.

Carefully, she sits down on the wooden stool, placing the hat neatly on top of her head; it slides down over her curls and covers her eyes. The entire room is quiet, seeming to hold its breath, and then the hat yells out, _"Gryffindor!"_ The shout is loud enough to make Eloise's heart skip a beat, but nearly everyone else seems to have been expecting it; the table with the lion banner erupts into cheers as Adams, Elisabeth runs to the nearest empty seat.

"Appel, Tanya," says Professor Flitwick - the hat calls, _"Slytherin!"_ - and "Brody, Jordan," who's declared a _"Hufflepuff!"_ Annie becomes a Hufflepuff, too, racing off to join her brother at the badger's table, and Albus ends up sitting next to Elisabeth Adams at the Gryffindor table.

And then, finally, she hears her own name: "Underwood, Eloise!"

She steps forward, trembling the same way that everyone else has, and sits down, hesitating for just a moment before pulling the hat down over the top half of her face. She closes her blue eyes as a voice begins to whisper in her ear. "Hmm," says the voice thoughtfully. "You're all over the place, aren't you?" El frowns in disagreement, but the voice is already hurrying on. "Smart, yes; brave, yes. A little dash of cunning, and you're a hard worker, too. I think you could do well in any of the Houses, really - but I suppose" - here, the voice cut off and, louder, continued - _"Ravenclaw!"_

The table with the eagle cheers and claps, and Eloise is alone at their table for a few moments, sitting between two older girls who smile at her and then turn back to their respective friends. She's not on her own for long, though; Rose is sorted into Ravenclaw, too, and El cheers with the rest of her new house. She can't help but feel glad that the redhead hasn't gotten Gryffindor, the way she was hoping.

As the last boy - Zeran, Marcus - is sent to the Hufflepuff table, the hat and stool are cleared away together and the tall, strict-looking woman at the center of the staff table stands up. What little chatter has started up since the end of the Sorting quiets down again quickly. Someone across the table whispers, "Shut up, McGonagall's talking," before the woman even opens her mouth.

"Good evening," starts the _McGonagall_ woman. "To our new students, welcome to Hogwarts - and to our old students, welcome back!" She lists a few rules, saying that the most important one is that the forest in the grounds was _forbidden._ She finishes off with, "Enjoy the feast!" and claps her hands once as she sits down - and, very suddenly, the tables are filled with dishes of steaming food, more food than Eloise thinks she's ever seen in her life.

Everyone digs in eagerly, piling their plates with food; El eats until she doesn't think she can take another bite, and _that,_ of course, is when the dishes disappear and are replaced with desserts - puddings, pies, cakes, tarts, everything that El can think of. She's too busy trying to get a slice of pie down on top of everything else to talk to anyone; luckily, Rose seems to be doing the same, and conversation is scarce.

The Headmistress stands up as the last of their students push their plates away from them, launching into a second speech that mostly consists of, "Now! Off to bed with all of you!"

As the entire student body makes to stand up all at once, two older students begin to call for the first-years, waving their arms. El and Rose are joined by eight other first-year students before them. The older students introduce themselves as Lorcan and Makayla, the seventh-year prefects of Ravenclaw, and lead the group of eleven-year-olds out of what they call the Great Hall (which fits the room a lot better than _room with enchanted ceiling,_ as far as Eloise is concerned) and up a spiral staircase. It ends after five flights, though El can see from the landing that they crowd onto that, down the corridor, another staircase continues to stretch upwards.

"The entrance to Ravenclaw Tower is locked with a riddle," explains Lorcan over the heads of all of them, running his fingers through sandy blond hair. "You knock here, and you'll have to answer a question to get in."

Eloise stands on tiptoes again to watch as the girl, Makayla, raises one hand for a bronze, eagle-shaped knocker on a door with no doorknob _or_ keyhole. _Knock, knock, knock._ A cool female voice speaks musically from the door knocker, the tone nearly emotionless. "Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?"

Makayla turns to the ten first-years behind her. "Anyone have any ideas?" she asks.

A hand shoots up next to El - Rose. She speaks before anyone calls on her, hand still wavering in the air. "The flame," she says practically, "because otherwise, how could the phoenix grow out of the ashes?"

"No," snaps someone else that Eloise can't see, "it was the phoenix!" And with that, everyone begins to speak at once, trying to figure out the answer; Eloise stays on the sidelines, unsure why they're talking about phoenixes to begin with. She read a book on Greek mythology once in class, but she doesn't remember much about the phoenix except that, of course, it's a _myth._

Then again, if magic is real, why can't a phoenix exist, too?

Sighing, Makayla turns back to the door and speaks loudly, sounding bored, over the chatter of everyone else. "It's a circle without a beginning," she answers, and as the door opens to reveal a wide, circular room, she adds over her shoulder, "Come on, people, that one was easy!"

"Girls to the left, boys to the right," instructs Lorcan, beckoning to the five first-year boys and heading across the room. It's perfectly circular, with arched windows around the walls to reveal the stars outside, framed with midnight-blue and bronze silk curtains. A domed ceiling stands high above a dark blue carpet; dark wooden tables with comfortable-looking chairs are scattered around the room, bookcases lining the walls between each window.

Lorcan leads the boys through a door on the opposite side of the common room; they trail after him up another spiral staircase as Makayla points out a white marble statue in between the two doors, naming the beautiful woman portrayed there as Rowena Ravenclaw, founder of Ravenclaw House. The staircase through the door on the left side of the statue leads down, and Eloise follows the prefect and the other four girls down to the seventh and final landing.

"This is your dormitory for the next seven years," announces the older girl, gesturing to the door. "Your things should all be by your beds. Breakfast is at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Good night!"

She starts back up the stairs again as the five girls file into the dormitory; it's round, a perfect circle like the common room, but smaller. Five beds with dark blue sheets and curtains pinned back around them are evenly spaced around the walls. Storm's cage sits on top of El's trunk at the foot of the closest bed, and she sits down on the edge of the mattress, looking around interestedly.

_Home, sweet home._

* * *

**_AUTHOR'S NOTE /_**_ Sorry about the wait on this one, guys! I've had this half-written for a while, but I was busy and didn't have time to type it up or finish it off. This has been crazy! I was sick for a while, my brother graduated from high school (which made me feel really old, even though I'm only a year older than him), and (most importantly), I got to see TAYLOR SWIFT! She's awesome. She's, like, one of my biggest idols. I love her! I may or may not have spent $160 on tour merchandise. And I cried a lot. I don't think it's normal to start crying when someone says, "Hello, Vancouver, I'm Taylor!" But I definitely did. It was amazing. I want to go back. I want to follow her around and go to all her shows until December when the tour ends. Oops. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed chapter two!  
_


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